Can Christian Hypocrisy be Overcome?
Can Christian Hypocrisy be Overcome?
In the end, raunchy sinners and righteous saints are more similar than they are different.
One of the most bothersome and refreshing things about the Bible is all the screw-ups that are in there, whom God loves in spite of themselves.
The Christian hypocrite story traces back to Eden, where Adam and Eve—humanity’s first parents—ate the fruit forbidden by God. The rest, as we know, was history. After Adam and Eve, there came others:
Noah got drunk (Genesis 9:21).
To protect himself, Abraham offered his wife to predators twice (Genesis 12:10-20, 20:1-18).
Jacob lived up to his name, which means “Liar” (Genesis 25:19-24).
David abused his power, committed sexual assault, and clandestinely arranged for the death of his victim’s husband (2 Samuel 11:1-27).
Speaking of David, whose Psalms help us pray: God gave David over half of those Psalms after the aforementioned sins.
Solomon was a womanizer (1 Kings 11:1-10).
The Apostle Peter denied Jesus Christ three times and engaged in exclusive, racially elitist, xenophobic behavior (Luke 22:54-62; Galatians 2:11-14).
The Apostle Paul had a history of religious bullying and came to understand himself as the chief of sinners. In his own words:
“I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man…Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life.” (1 Timothy 1:13-16)
What a wretched man I am!…I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 7:21-8:1)
The history of the church since biblical times has a similar story.
As Andrew Wilson has said:
“The story of Christianity is full of light—mission, education, art, healthcare, abolition, compassion, justice… But there is an undeniable dark side: attacking, burning, crusading, drowning, enslaving, flogging, ghettoizing, hunting, imprisoning, Jew-hating, killing, lynching and so on through the entire alphabet. What makes this difficult to stomach is that the people involved, as far as we know, have loved God, followed Jesus and received his Spirit.”
To this we could add that John Calvin participated in burning a man at the stake, Martin Luther made racist comments, George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards owned slaves, John Wesley was an absentee husband, and more.
This “appalling history” is why some dismiss Christianity altogether. Can we blame them? The appalling behaviors of some Christians, whether historic or contemporary, risk delegitimizing the whole movement.
As Chesterton said:
“The only legitimate argument against Christianity is Christians.”
Far be it from me to correct Chesterton. And yet…was he correct?
Is the poor behavior of some Christians really a good reason to dismiss the merits of Christ himself? Are our many failures—as duplicitous and off-putting as they may be—sufficient to overrule an empty tomb? Or on the other hand, do they amplify the immensity (and scandal) of the far-reaching grace and mercy of Christ?
Will we lose respect for Mozart if a nervous six-year-old plays his music poorly at a beginner’s piano recital?
Will we cease to think of Michael Jordan as the best basketball player of all time (I’m sorry but this is not debatable 😁) if a teenage boy wearing Air Jordan shoes misses a free throw?
As important as it is for Christians to represent Jesus well to a watching world, Christians’ failure to do so is no good reason to dismiss the God-Man himself. As Tolstoy wrote to a skeptic friend:
“You preach very well, but do you carry out what you preach? … I answer that I am guilty, and vile…[But] attack me rather than the path I follow and which I point out to anyone who asks me where I think it lies. If I know the way home and am walking along it drunkenly, is it any less the right way because I am staggering from side to side! If it is not the right way, then show me another way.”
Maybe the real barrier to faith in Christ is that Christ saves by faith alone. Maybe the real barrier is that God’s family is not a family of put-together, pious folk, but is rather a family of blood-bought misfits that makes room for demoniacs like Mary Magdalene, cowards like Peter, sex-hungry, murderous abusers of power like David, sex workers like Rahab, white collar crooks like Zacchaeus, and others like myself who have, like Tolstoy, walked “drunkenly” along a path that is itself a perfect path, because it is Christ’s path.
Maybe, Mr. Chesterton, the best argument for Christianity—and for a God who loves his people including their foremost leaders solely on the basis of grace—is the existence of messy, blatantly flawed, often repenting and always wishing, sometimes aspiring for more and better…
…Christians.
Thank you so much for writing this -- it really hits home. I love that quotation from Tolstoy, too.
Dear Scott, I don't want you to think your words have fallen on deaf ears. I get your point. We are flawed people needing to repent, needing forgiveness and needing to be extended grace. But I must take issue with the lack of nuance in how you say John Calvin was involved in the death of Michael Servetus. Having lived in Geneva Switzerland for the last 38 years, I've constantly heard how people blame Calvin for his death. But that is simply not the case. Francis Higman, one-time director of Reformation Studies at the University of Geneva would say a lot more was going on. Servetus was a condemned man for his teaching against God being Trinity. He was persona non-grata all over the Church in Europe. And why he came to Geneva is a mystery. So when he came and attended worship, Calvin did affirm that he needed to be arrested (stopped) by the City. So he was involved. But there was a lot more intrigue going on. The Reformed Churches in Zurich, Basel and Bern (not to mention Lausanne) saw Servetus as a heretic. Not to be outdone, Servetus accused Calvin of being a heretic and called for his death. But at that moment the Geneva government leaders were not supporting Calvin and wanted to embarrass him by getting Servetus acquitted. But the pressure from the reformed Swiss Cantons made that impossible. So, the city leader's hands were tied once Servetus came to Geneva. Calvin actually wanted the execution by beheading which was more human. But the penalty of the time was burning at the stake. But to simply say the "Calvin participated" in the burning of Servetus as an example of hypocrisy or personal flaw, overstates his involvement and misunderstands the context of the time. Calvin was firmly and rigidly committed to the Bible's teaching of God being Father, Son and Spirit. To him, words mattered. A unitarian teaching was simply not honoring to who God is. And so, this sad story of the collision between these two men, which Servetus instigated, ends in tragedy: Servetus killed for his beliefs and Calvin demonized for standing by his convictions. But yes, the Bible and history has lots of example of hypocrisy in the church. Something that should tame our self-righteous views of ourselves.